No wonder Canes has so many Finn prospects there lol

The canes just do everything right (except trading for Skjei) ...

Even that's too early to say. In the playoffs, at least, he was very effective.

Yeah but he’s still awful defensively. If that’s your worst contract, you’re doing something right. I just don’t understand why they traded a 1st for him when they have gardiner, fleury, and bean

Skjei was only on the ice for one or two goals this postseason, which I think is a good sign of him stepping up his game. They acquired him because we were ravaged with injuries in February, he's huge, can skate incredibly well for his size, and is under team control for 4 seasons, which means that whenever they've worked their magic on him and Jake Bean is deemed ready, they can deal him for an equivalent to greater return later on. It was also essentially a free pick to play with, considering the highly effective Marleau dump, which netted us a 13th overall pick.

I know but his xGA/60 + Ca/60 weren’t great. If any team can work with Skjei and increase its value , it’s the canes but I still don’t think it was necessary. It will be interesting to see what they do with the expansion draft next offseason.

My guess is that they plan to let Seattle take Fleury or possibly include a mid-round pick to entice Seattle to take one of Skjei, Nino, or Gardiner. Because of their propensity to hold onto picks, though, I wouldn't be surprised if they go 4+4+1 to protect Fleury and perhaps deal Bean/Foegele + for Kuemper, or something like that.

In the regular season, yes. I think that the best pairing in both playoff rounds that we were in, from an analytical perspective, was actually Skjei-Edmundson, which was rather shocking considering their issues with pleasing the computer boys in the regular season.